Review: Brought to you by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com

Another great day. Another great review. This time I had the opportunity to review four books Brought to you by Carole P. Roman and Awaywegomedia.com. The four books I had the opportunity to review are included below: If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 1) If You Were Me and Lived in the American West (Volume 7) If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4) If You Were Me and Lived in ... Elizabethan England (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 3) In addition to the four books that I was given the opportunity to review (pictured above), there are other outstanding books in the series including: 

• If You Were Me and Lived in ... Renaissance Italy (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 2) 
• If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient China: The Han Dynasty 
• If You were Me and Lived in ... The Middle Ages (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 6)
• If You Were Me and Lived in ... Viking Europe 

These books allow your child to travel through time to visit civilizations throughout our history. The reader basically enters a time-travel machine and gets to see the world through the eyes of a young person just like them. You learn what your name might have been as illustrated on the page below:

"If you were a boy, your parents might have called you Comfort or Abraham. They may have chosen Patience or Mercy for your sisters' names. What do the names tell you about the society?"

I actually had my second grade boys read through each of these four books a number of times during their daily reading time. For this review, I want to focus on just one of the books: If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4), however each of the books was equally fantastic and presented the same "type" of information with a different location. 

In If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4) you begin by learning the date you were probably born: sometime around 1620. You see a picture of London, but then you come to the New World. You board a ship and find out that "The ship was originally supposed to land near the Hudson River in New York, but dangerous shoals and bad weather forced the ship in a northerly direction to New England. The settlers named the place where the ship finally arrived Plymouth." It even discusses the possibility of you making friends with a native boy. "You met him at the river one day. You were scared, but he was friendly and somehow you learned to talk to each other by using hand movements."

One of the things I really enjoy about the series is that they ask the reader questions. For example, some of the questions scattered throughout If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4) include: 

• This is the English you would have left to come to the New World. What do you see as the biggest challenges? 
• What do you think the name Separatists tells you about them?

The other thing I really enjoyed was that nearly all aspects of life were discussed. This particular book had some of its more than 50 pages devoted to:

• Food (including what types of things might have been eaten at each meal)
• Trade
• Clothing
• Housing
• Kitchen tools
• Illnesses
• Lanuage nuances
• What the town looked like
• Government
• Travel
• Friendships/play

You get the idea! And each of the other four books followed a similar pattern in the questions asked and ideas focused on. For example: If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 1) asked questions like "Do you have a room like that in your house today?" And it focused on things like community, gods, housing, family, etc. 

A picture of my seven-year-old reading: If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 1). The books were just about the right length for my boys to read in one sitting. And while they are at the age that they will never admit they like any book, there was very little grumbling about the assignment or questions about the words and how hard they were. 

While the books follow the same basic format, one thing that I found interesting was that the same illustrators are not used for all the books. For example, Mateya Arkova illustrated two of Roman's books including If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 1), but Sarah Wright illustrated the If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4) book. I think this was a good choice as it gives each of the books its own style. There were at least two other illustrators used for her eight books presenting a different feel.

The If You Were Me and Lived in ... Ancient Greece (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time (Volume 1) pictured above does focus on the gods of the Greeks. While some people may not like this focus, I believe it is an important part of the culture and history of this people and was handled appropriately. Of special note, the author used certain words that I think did a good job of setting apart this belief as a belief not a fact. For example she writes:

"If you were Greek, you would worship many gods. You would be taught that there were gods for every aspect of life. All the gods supposedly live on a gigantic mountain called Mount Olympus. Its peak reaches 9.750 feet!"

(Notice the inclusion of the word supposedly which I do not think was accidental.)

I absolutely LOVED that each of these books had a glossary! So important. And the If You Were Me and Lived in ... Colonial America (An Introduction to Civilizations Throughout Time Volume 4) book also included the names of influential people in that era. 

We thoroughly enjoyed these four books, and I have no doubt that they will play a significant role in our family's library for years to come. You could read these books to your children starting at about first grade, and I think they would get something out of them into fourth and fifth grade. 

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